Monday, February 04, 2013

The Unreasoning Vitriol of the Arab Mind

There is hatred
so vitriolic that accusations stemming from it are so removed from
reality it stuns the listener to have such evidence that the mind behind
the statements is so deranged as to be beyond the sphere of normal
human rationality, nestling comfortably in radical insanity. And when a
leader of a nation is so psychically indisposed - disposed rather toward
incoherent mad ramblings - there is that moment where even the most
oblivious must exclaim "aha! he's berserk" and must be removed before
any further damage ensues.

On the other hand, what Syria's President Bashar al
Assad contends, is standard fare in the Middle East. So his state of
mind which by Western standards looms bleakly twisted, merely expresses
what is common thought throughout the geography. With rulers of this
ilk, the theocratic ayatollahs, the oil sheikhs,
the kingdoms, the secular tyrants and dictators, one can only conclude
it is little wonder that the people ruled by them are so backward, so
infused with tribal and sectarian hatreds, so volatile in their rage and
misery.

Syria is being wracked by an insurrection,
another one of those 'freedom-aspiring' revolutions where the populace
cries 'liberty', and sets off on a program of mass protests to achieve a
change of leadership, in the fond hope that such peaceful
demonstrations could move the mind-set of the oppressor toward a more
humane method of rule, one nudging equality and temperance. The
resistance with which their clamour for equality was met was swift and
it was deadly. Tens of thousands of Syrians have paid the ultimate
price.

And, as most matters in the Middle East are
never simple and straightforward, neither is this one, with competing
'sides' advocating their visions of Islamic faith and political ideology
joining the fray, descending with excited fury from Iraq, Iran,
Lebanon, Libya and Mali to assist the protest to achieve its aims,
irrespective of its cost in human lives, and the cost steadily rises, as
the regime and the opposition each indulge in their own resolute bids
for survival, using bloody carnage to convince the other just how
resolute they are.

And, as much as each detests the
other and goes on to commit one atrocity after another on the suffering
civilian populations cowering under the onslaught of the regime's
military might on the one hand, and the casual dehumanization and decivilization
brought upon them by the rebels' mujaheddin on the other, there is
still one area on which they can all agree with the passionate hatred
reserved especially for vile Jews, for Zionists, for the mortal enemy of
them all, Israel.

Therefore, in the logic of the
regime and the additional convoluted reasoning of the opposition in
Syria, Israel's strike to remove the potential of advanced weaponry and
chemical weapons from reaching the hands of Iran-sponsored terrorist
groups Hezbollah and Hamas aligned with both the regime and some of the
opposition, it is Israel and its demonic manipulation of matters in the
Middle East that constitutes a threat to the stability of the Syrian
state.

And it is to the United Nations that the
embattled regime turns in livid rage, insisting that something be done
to halt the violation of their sovereign airspace from overflights by
their mortal enemies seeking to defend themselves through securing their
borders and their interior from the threat posed by the terrorist
friends of the regime. The opposition taunts the regime that it allowed
itself to be taken by surprise, the regime accuses Israel of conspiring
with the help of those who seek to destroy Israel, to first remove the
Syrian regime.

The fine logic behind these responses
speaks volumes about the Arab mind's sensibilities, honour sensitivities
and lack of intelligence.